Ode to Tent City London
Let's share some travel experience this time!
In 1999 (a loooong time ago!) we went to London. Ryanair was young then, and so it was a bit pricey, but Torino was connected directly and it was summertime! So off we went, and a horrible sandwich and a 30 pound, 30 minutes' train journey after, we were in central London!
We brought tents, and so we ended up in the only camping site in London, the Tent City!
It was basically a field, with and old barrack with (common) showers and a cashier. It was in central london, or maybe just outside the first zone of the subway. The place had been founded by some hippies in the '60s, and it was run by some 90's hippies still!
At night, some music parties (I remember it was the Manu-chau king of the bongo - obsessive summer), lots of alcohol (I was eighteen after all!) and the usual amount of pot smoking you'd expect to find in a summer camp run by and hosted by post-hippies. (i don't smoke, makes me cough)
Some really strange people were staying in the various tiny tents:
- a gay couple, with a 25 years old tall guy, wearing a miniskirt and rollerblades (which we instantly called "giacu fumna" literally "james woman".. don't ask) and a 60 years old professor, wearing some hawaiian shirt- Expecially funny people when dancing on the king of the bongo in the morning.
- a traveling circus, whose components were all black, performing some stunts on bikes, smoking from dawn till dusk, and humiliating us all in the (common) showers... (extreme drop of self esteem)
- assorted guys with black fingernails
- an italian girl working for the organization, which let us go without paying for the last day (she had been sitting in a strange circle while we were packing... so "no need to pay brothers... we're all friends here.."
- a corean guy doing nightshifts at the cashier, normally giving you back all the money you gave him as change when paying...
It was the cheapest possible place in London (except sleeping under bridges).
don't look for it though... the neighborhood had it closed some years ago for night noises and loud music. they were not "all friends there" after all... :D
Hey! Weird things we did in the past, mario! But it's still funny to remember our vagrant life in the land of cucumbers and Tennents!
The question is: why did you think to that place? U still miss giacu fumna? lol
bye
certo, ogni tanto mi sveglio nella notte e penso a giacomo donna, che cammina fra le tende sui trampoli·... :D
I stayed there in 1988 and I really loved it. Met people from all over the world and had a lot of fun.
When I looked at the old pictures, I asked myselve if Tent City still exists, so I searched in Google.
Think I will go there this summer.
sorry to tell you oliver, they shut it down some years ago.. too noisy for the neighborhood...
oh what a shame!!!! i stayed there in 1997 and i loved it!!!! awesome place, cool people! have you got ANY pics, i'd love to see them!
cheers,
mon
post the pics mate!!
cheers,
mon
ok I will! just need to look in some boxes, and do some scanning! :)
Cool! Can't wait to see them!
sad thing.. closing down of tent city.. wich of the sites did you stay at? i worked on hackney during the summer of 2000.. had a great time.. u know we were all volunteers there, right? no one really knew anything about running a campsite, but we tried our best!
in the end, the best part of staying there were the parties.. a guitar, a bonfire, a couple of bottles of wine and a bunch of ppl you just met but feel like been your friends all your life.. that was the spirit of tent city.
I also worked there from 5th August 1995 til mid September. It' was a great time because I could visit London, meet wonderful people, have fun and to be in a project that alowed to provide cheap accomodation close to central London. Well greetings for you and to all the people who enjoyed bot Tent City and Hackney Camping...
hey again mate! yeah, i worked there too (as a volunteer from may to july 1997)...it was awesome!!! i met so many great people there, we had superb parties and a right laugh!!!
here's my email if you wanna get in touch and swap some pics :)
indiansummer75 at hotmail.co.uk
correction - i worked in east acton not hackney, sorry!
Hi, I was volunteering in Tent City Hackney back in 1996 and it was a wonderful place. My friend was in Acton. I met some wonderful people, made few friends there and then hitch-hiked all around Britain and Ireland afterwards. Great summer that was :-)
I stayed in Tent City in the summer of 1978 yes 1978, great experience, I still remember East Acton, fish and chips and the great parties
i worked there in that year ...
i lived there for 8 weeks in the summer of 1994 brilliant place
Hello, I'm Mauri from Venice Italy, I was in Tent City in the summer of 1994... how many memories! A magic place!!!
HAHA! I stayed there late in the summer 1999 also, and coincidentally, I too was 18. The korean guy I think was calling himself "jet"... at the time I was there, we had a fire dancer from new york, a con artist "jaque" from south africa, a college student "irek" doing his thesis on george orwell tape-recording interviews with everyone, 5 polish guys vacationing- all I recall is one guy was being called jesus cause he looked like jesus, a composer "olav" from norway, a make up artist "cathy" from edinbourgh, & a few others. I recall guitar music alot & drumming sometimes too. we had a huge party the last night as things were being broken down, etc. I even got to play with one of the fire dancer's batons while it was lit. there was booze, music, & lots of dancing. it was all kind of hazy toward the wee hours of morning... I miss that place, & the people I came to know there.
I was there on 2000 for a month, and it was incredible!!!. Maybe, it was the best summer in my life. Strange and nice people there.
Sergio from Ferrol (Spain)
Ey, Sergio. I stayed with you this crazy 2000 summer (sure you remember me: Manel, Valencia).
It was maybe the weirdest summer in my life, working at the SPORTS CAFE LONDON as a barback and sleeping in a huge military tent. WTF! I was fire for extremely poor personal hygiene.
Hiya'll
I'm Andy from Milano Italy and I would love to share my memories. I've been to Tent City two times in summer 1986 and in summer 1988 as I was travelling by car with my tent, some friends and few money. Tent City was the cheaper place to sleep in London you could have used your own tent or rest in your sleeping bag on iron beds into large military style tents. There was a concrete block with toilets, showers, offices and large locked rooms where you could have stored your belongings. There was a truck turned into a bar where you could have bought basic style sandwiches, bottles ofmilk and Cadbury chocolate bars. Moreovere there where 2 steel pipes structures with wooden benches and tables fixed on it and funny white and yellow plastic shelter on them whwrw yo could have eat our take away food, talk, play music and have a beer.Just infront of Tent City there was a sall cafè run by an old lady, under the train arches with an orange door and a large sign telling "no campers served here" In my mind there are still the feelings about a no stress stay, the friendly atmosphere and the taste of meeting people from all around the world. I still remember the US guy working as a hairdresser in central London, I still remember the italian guy crying because he was fired from his McDonald's job and I still remember the sweet eyes of Kati the finnish girl from Turku I was about to fall in love with. I still remember those happy days when I was 23 and 25, when I was still at university, when I was much more energetic (and not looking for hygene and cleaness where I sleep). I've been to Tent City area in 2006 (the tube stop is East Acton) and I've had one of the biter bites I've ever had. The concrete block has been destroyed, the bar truck has been towed away and a large bunch of scrap denies cars to enter the parking area. The only remains are the white swinging metal fence at the entrance and of the two steel pipes structures with some rotting benches on it. Time flyes unfortunately but is good to find these experiences in my "inner bag" when I sometime open it :-). You can stil see Tent City from high by using Google Earth typing " London 201 Old Oak Common Lane " and if you switch to Street View mode youcan still see the steel structure I was talking.
Tent City forever !
It's great to see Tent City is still so much missed! :)
Hello again, here Maurizio from Venice.
I have found the facebook Tent City group, this one:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4991027725
There are some photo, also from my journey.
Ciao!
Mauri
WHAT? So Tent City is no more??
What a pity!
I found this page because the chain/necklace around my neck just broke tonight.
...Let me explain!
You see, on my first Inter Rail trip around Europe (starting from Finland) in the early 80's, me and my pal couldn't afford any real hotels or even hostels, so we stayed at Tent City. And what a wonderful time we had, even caught a Rip Rig & Panic gig downtown with a 17-year-old Neneh Cherry fronting them.
Well, as anybody who ever stayed at Tent City can remember, you could leave your belongings at the site for the day in a big army bag that you could lock up with a chain and a small padlock, and just take the key with you for the day's adventures.
But after we left town, I seemed to have forgotten the chain and padlock (totally accidentally, I can assure you) in my rucksack, and only found them back home. I decided to make a "neck chain" out of it -- and have been wearing it for the past 28-29 years non-stop, night and day... (Basically because there's no clasp mechanism, I just needed to "hammer up" the chain tight).
So now that it broke for the first time, I thought of googling up Tent City for the memories -- and THIS is what the world has come to?? No cheap haven for the world's youth to come to in London anymore?
Shame on you, whoever it was that caused this abomination!
To say that Tent City was great would be an understatement, the place was heaven and that just goes to show how much fun you can have in what was otherwise an absolute dump of an area rife with petty theives and other dodgy people; it was really out of the way too but that may have been to its advantage as you rarely had any locals showing to spoil the party. I was there for two whole summers 1998 and 1999 and I am ashamed to say that I stayed there for free almost the whole time?but did pitch my tent outside the fence a lot when I wasn't in some girl's tent - I wish. But did have some great times with a few girls though and especially enjoyed it under the stars out in the big field - I'm sure some of you will remember Renata from Poland, you know the blonde teacher with glasses (sexy librarian look) with a tiny waist and great hips - I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Enjoyed all the dope smoking too. I still envy Justin for all the girls he used to get off with, especially that young German blonde - you lucky bastard. Still remember some of the unusual chartacters too, Camden Dave, Jo, and some of the weirder things I saw, like a guy of about 35 getting blowed by two under age girls outside one of the big army tents in broad daylight - only in Tent City.I was a wild place and would be happy to stay there again if it hadn't had closed, but these days I am probably passed the phase where I could get away with being such a complete sexed, doped-out bum, but a week or two would be nice. Any other similar places in Europe please recommend.
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